Microsoft's Windows Phone UK director Leila Martine laid out her vision of how Microsoft can beat out Google Inc.'s (GOOG) Android and Apple, Inc.'s (AAPL) iOS in the business sector. Microsoft sees the enterprise wireless devices market as a crucial sector for its growth, as it's perhaps the most universally embraced enterprise workstation and server vendor. And with BlackBerry, Ltd. (TSE:BB) currently riding into the sunset, the fittest challenger looks poised to inherit a lucrative series of enterprise device contracts.

Speaking to the UK publication Mobile News, Ms. Martine said that iOS trails Windows Phone in price and choice, while Android trails it in security. She comments:

Our ambition is to be number one in the business market and my ambition is to achieve that within the next year. We want to be taking share from across the board.

When you think of Apple, how many CEOs and CIOs really want to pay for their employees to use an expensive premium device when they can choose from a full range of devices? With Android, Apple and BlackBerry, there are continued concerns about the fragmentation of the ecosystem, the segmentation of the experience and also the level of malware.

Windows Phone currently sits in third place in the global smartphone market. In January 2014, one survey -- Kantar Worldpanel ComTech -- indicated Microsoft had risen to an 11.5 percent stake of new smartphone sales, however its inevitably rocky integration of Nokia Devices has depressed that stake slightly to 9.5 percent.

Ms. Martine acknowledged to the UK publication that Windows Phone 8.1 rolled out a bit slow, but she vowed that Microsoft would spend heavily to push the platform higher, now that Windows Phone 8.1 devices are at last shipping to customers. She states:

The industry is hyper-competitive, the growth is slowing down and that is putting a lot of pressure on manufacturers. The fact that we were the fastest growing OS last year gives us a really good platform to build on our momentum.

In the next year, Ms. Martine says Microsoft is also targeting twenty percent global share in the market -- a number which would likely propel it past Apple.

MS actually has a lot of control over what OEMs can or cannot make. All WP8 drivers are written and maintained by MS (to prevent OEMs from deciding not to do the work needed to allow new OS versions from running on their hardware); so the hardware makers can't use any parts that MS hasn't approved of and decided to support.

quote: MS actually has a lot of control over what OEMs can or cannot make.

OK I probably didn't state that the way I intended. As you note, MS does exert some control over what hardware is supported by their OS...the concept I intended to convey is that ultimately the design and price of any given phone is up to the OEM - granted that MS may be leveraging some control over the available parts list.

At the end of the day, the OEM can put together any phone they want that will work with that OS, and charge whatever price they want for it.

Let's just think about this for a second...let's say that MS uses Nokia to build a nice quad-core, Moto E/G-esque phone that they then sell for $50 a pop. Which as far as I know is under cost. Or at the very least, with essentially no profit.

Now that MS's set the bar for a solid mid-range Windows phone at $50, how do you think HTC, Samsung, Sony, et al are going to feel about that? Are they going to be happy that MS's pulled the rug out from under them? Or are they likely to just abandon making Windows phones at all...remember, maybe MS makes money in the long run on loss-leader phones, but the OEMs sure as hell wouldn't.

My point above is that MS has to do something. Something different then they have been doing for the past decade. Dont forget, Windows phone 5,6 were out competing with Palm OS years before the iPhone existed... MS has TONS of experience here and simply stating "we are going to be #2 in 2015" is a HUGE goal. One that needs huge effort, and simply continuing on the current path wont do it. I am not saying the OS isn't worthy, and I am not saying it cant be done, I am just saying it will take a radical rethink from the MS mobile strategy that has fluttered over the past decade (right up to current date).

Why bother? seriously why does Microsoft have to have a phone OS? what advantage does it bring to the Microsoft business? Windows phones could take a 100 % of the phone market and if Microsoft is not charging a license fee then it would make exactly nothing from achieving that. It could buy market share by selling hardware at cost but it would make exactly nothing from doing that. Where is the money in this game?

Microsoft is a software company, it needs to develop a profitable footprint in the massive mobile device software market. That will be difficult, and the margins will be much, much lower than it's old desktop PC software business, but it's doable especially if they develop platform agnostic productivity solutions for enterprise mobile. It's in enterprise integration that Microsoft has some remaining high value assets from it's legacy business capable of leveraging mobile market penetration. But I cannot see why they need an OS, especially one that is never going to be the majority platform, in order to be the world' leading purveyor of mobile enterprise software.